


Progress of Will

by crookedspoon



Series: Feed Me, Also, River God [13]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-28
Updated: 2014-10-28
Packaged: 2018-02-23 01:22:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2528825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crookedspoon/pseuds/crookedspoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If so much in their lives has changed, Thea wonders what else can have the chance to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Progress of Will

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lionessvalenti](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lionessvalenti/gifts).



As they drive home from the airport, Thea thinks how Starling has changed since she's been here last, along with everyone in it. The streets look darker somehow – even where the housefronts are still intact and the asphalt still runs smooth – the inhabitants more forlorn, glum, defeated. She can't blame them, not after all the destruction, all the massacres. Any city would need time to heal from that.

But it's not only strangers who look exhausted: Diggle appears calm enough despite the rings beneath his eyes, but Roy is jittery, and Ollie also looks so drawn. Diggle she can excuse because of his newborn daughter at home.

Maybe it's just her perception of it, having spent so much time in the sun, among genial people. Every other place now seems to have been stricken with bad weather for weeks on end and everyone's mood just has adapted to the gloom.

Already she's beginning to think that going home was a bad idea, that she'll just be confronted with more secrets and lies. But she wants to prove to herself that these things no longer hurt her. She would prefer it if it were different, if they could all just open up to one another, but she knows that some things may never be spoken of. 

She's got her own secrets now.

Five months are a long time for yourself to change, and in her time with Malcolm, Thea has gone above and beyond that. It's not that she's not recognizable anymore. On the contrary: Thea feels more at home in her skin than she's ever done in the years before her father and brother left on the yacht. After that, she had tried to find the missing pieces of herself in drugs and partying, chipping away a the ruins of her former self.

"When we're not together, then we're not really alive," Ollie said, and he was right. She had missed him while she was on her own island, and never noticed how much until he stood in front of her again.

It was like meeting a stranger all over. The difference this time was that her secrets are no longer hurting her. She has finally figured out some things for herself, and not every piece of insight is something she would share with anyone.

Although there's one person she wants to share it with.

She leans against the door jamb to Ollie's room, watches him change into something more comfortable. He's about to thrown on an old T-shirt when he notices her presence. Either she's become stealthier or he lets his guard down around her, because she's already within arm's reach when he stiffens and turns around, fabric bunching at his elbow.

"Thea," he says, "is everything all right?"

Always asking if she was okay, deflecting from his own thoughts.

As usual, she's unable to take her eyes off the scars adorning his body – she'd love to hear their story, but he's made it clear that he's not ready to tell her, that he probably never will be.

"You said that if I knew everything about you I'd see you differently," she longs to tell him. "What you don't understand, Ollie, is that I've seen you differently since the moment you came back."

Would he understand? Does she want him to understand? It's difficult to decide when their lives have changed so much. Sameness is familiar, it gives her a sense of security, keeps her grounded in who she was. Her old self was weak, too weak to acknowledge her desires, but even if she is ready to face the new her, not everyone else is.

Ollie regards her with that strange yearning in his eyes, that pained resolution not to let anyone close, and Thea is so tired of seeing it directed at her. 

Her fingers smooth over the deep gash on his ribcage. They used to hurt her too, these wounds, but she has since learned that suffering is optional.

"Whatever it is you're going through," she says, covering his heart with her palm and lifting her eyes from his naked chest. His pulse is strong and soothing. "I'm here for you."

"Thea." He covers her hand with his, visibly struggling with himself. When he lifts her fingers from his skin, she half-expects him to tell her to back off, half-anticipates him to lift them to his lips, but instead he just says, "Thank you."

She searches his eyes, hoping for something more, but they cannot talk about what's on their minds. Whatever the issue, they're always skirting it. She would have been disappointed before, but now that she has to hide her own secrets, she can understand. You do it to protect another's version of you.

Her own heart clogging her throat, she stands on tiptoe and presses a kiss to the edge of his mouth. Let him decide what to make of this. He accepts it, like so often, as if resigning to his fate. As if he had no choice but to comply.

"Anytime."

Perhaps he doesn't want a choice, perhaps this time, he wants it taken out of his hands. Whatever it is, Thea is content to let matters progress on their own for now, without forcing them.


End file.
